In a clear illustration of why
“the perfect is the enemy of
the good,” as the old saying
goes, professional expertise
often seems to interfere with more obvious,
informal, and efficient solutions to public
problems. At least, that’s the case that Beth
Simone Noveck makes in Smart Citizens,
Smarter State. Noveck believes that new technologies
have great potential to improve governance,
but only if governments can draw
from the “good” wisdom of informed crowds
and not rely exclusively on the “perfect” information
of credentialed experts.

Currently, Noveck writes, the US government’s
dependence on experts establishes a
“false dichotomy between reliance on a professional
elite or on an ignorant citizenry.” As
a result, many government programs are insulated
from broader public input. This state
of affairs is particularly counterproductive
because, given the rate at which today’s information
technologies are improving, broader
participation is crucial not only to democratic
governance but also to more efficient solutions
to public problems.

Noveck takes a gloomy view of government’s
current barriers to the uptake of
new, participatory approaches but is optimistic
about the future potential for public
input. She is in a good position to evaluate
these prospects: Not only has she studied
the crowdsourcing tools she advocates while
teaching at New York University and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology—she also has furthered their development as
director of the Obama White House’s Open
Government Initiative and advisor to David
Cameron’s Open Government team. She
currently directs NYU’s Governance Lab,
which is attempting to put theory into practice
through programs such as a networking
hub among experts on open data, education,
and other topics.

As I read Noveck’s book, I found myself thinking of a time, years ago, when I served
on the National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ)
peer review panels on criminal justice research
requests. Paragons of professionalism,
these panels employed some of the
best minds in criminology to evaluate government-solicited studies on criminal justice
problems. The process moved slowly
and relied almost exclusively on specialists.

This sort of system is important, but it
ignores the broad array of other people with
day-to-day experience who could offer enormous
insight on the very same issues—a point
that becomes alarmingly clear in Noveck’s
book. One chapter, titled “Why Smarter Governance
May Be Illegal,” details the many
dispiriting mechanisms that restrict government’s
ability to listen to crowds. The Federal
Advisory Committee Act of 1972, for example,
limited the number of groups qualified to advise
federal agencies to a narrow field of credentialed
experts. The Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1980 imposed a lengthy application and
approval process on agencies wishing to collect
records of public input.

Noveck’s analysis on this point reminded
me of the responses I received as chairman
of the Corporation for National and
Community Affairs to my proposal that we conduct exit surveys with AmeriCorps
members about their experiences. I assumed
these surveys would guide our grantmaking
and assist future volunteers in making
their placement decisions. But the idea
met strong resistance from the Paperwork
Reduction enforcement regime, which
delayed the proposal by about a year while
watering it down along the way.

The professionals who evaluated grants,
meanwhile, showed a discouraging lack of
enthusiasm for my idea. Their roles were not
designed to be receptive to new ways of operating,
and the institutional culture inhibited
experimentation. Noveck pays particular attention
to this hurdle—one that many of us
who specialize in state and local government
regularly confront. “The real source of worry
is less corruption and self-interest … than the
inability to apply the full range of relevant,
available expertise to our most pressing challenges,”
she writes. Tools that amplify crowd
wisdom and open source expertise, after all,
are effective only if accompanied by a fundamental
shift in attitudes toward creativity
and flexibility. Unfortunately, changing culture
is much more difficult.

The core challenge Noveck raises, however,
is relevant to a broad range of public
interest professionals. As government agencies
review how to solicit and shape public
knowledge, they must also rethink what,
exactly, sets the credentialed experts apart.
Noveck identifies substantial potential for
change in this area and encourages public
thinkers and officials to be more nimble, efficient, and inclusive in their views of what
constitutes knowledge. She also advocates
conducting the business of government in
closer alignment with the cutting edge of
technology. If we are serious about building
a genuinely democratic community of
knowledge-makers, we ought to take her
recommendations to heart.

Stephen Goldsmith is the Daniel Paul Professor of the
Practice of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School
(HKS). He is also director of the Innovations in American Government
Program at HKS and former mayor of Indianapolis.